


You and Only You

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cheesy little coffee shop AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and Only You

> _Every single day I wake_   
> _I just can’t wait to see your face_   
> _Are you looking back at me  
>  \- You and Only You by We the Kings_

  
The new piano guy is singing to Chris again, and Chris has no idea how he’s supposed to react.

Is it a joke? A prank? Chris thought he left all that behind when he graduated high school.

But the piano guy isn’t laughing. If it’s a joke, it’s a bad one with a punchline nowhere in sight.

Which just leaves Chris… confused.

His co-workers are all too busy and too involved in their own little dramas to notice - Melinda on her phone and Percy trying to flirt with her even though she’s probably texting that thirty year old businessman she’d slipped her number to the day before.

Yeah, Chris notices that kind of shit. It’s not like he’s got anything else to do but observe. Sometimes he goes home and writes the things he sees into stories for his creative writing class.

Of course, it’s Clovis CC, he could probably fingerpaint on the page and still get an A, but that’s okay. The ease of the class just gives him more freedom to play. Some of his best work has spawned from conversations overheard in the coffee shop.

He’s not overhearing much lately, though. He’s too distracted by that fucking piano player.

"Why did we even hire him?" Chris scowls. He’s talking mostly to the drink he’s making but Melinda chooses that moment to look up from her texting.

"Janice said some shit about ambiance." She rolls her eyes. Her mascara is kind of stuck together in wads on her eyelashes. They look like spiders crawling on her eyes when she glances down again. "He’s hot, though. Major bubble butt."

"Are you into him? Mr. Medium Roast, Two Sugars, No This is Too Hot Could You Have Her Remake It will be heartbroken," Chris says.

Melinda snorts. “Are you kidding? Would it matter if I was? Dude has a boner for you.”

"Ew," Percy contributes. "Colfer’s not a fag."

Chris turns back to the espresso machine, that sick feeling in his stomach.

"You’re a dumbass." Melinda says, but she’s laughing.

Not at him, but that doesn’t really matter, because ah - there it is. That feeling he just can’t escape while he’s still in this town.

*

Chris has afternoon classes four days a week. He works mornings, mostly, all day Sunday and evenings only when someone needs to trade a shift off. He takes all the hours he can get, because he might be living at home still right now but he’s putting every penny away to move.

The piano player is only in on evenings, from six pm until closing time. Closing time in a small town coffee shop is nine pm throughout the week, ten on Fridays and Saturdays.

That means another two weeks passes easily before Chris sees the piano guy.

It’s a traded-for Friday evening and Chris is wiping down tables at half past five.

"Darren!" He hears Amy say in a chipper voice. Chris recognizes that voice. It’s her sugary-sweet trying to impress a guy voice, a world away from the sharp bitter tone she takes with him.

Amy’s a bitch. Chris delights in writing her into awful situations in his stories.

Chris looks over at the door in time to see the piano guy walking in, a huge smile on his face.

"Hey, cutie!" Darren says.

Chris rolls his eyes and scrubs harder at the table surface.

*

Over the course of the evening Chris is made aware of a few things.

First - that the piano guy has a nickname for everyone. Honey, babe, sweetie, cutie.

Everyone, though.

Not just the girls.

Second - that the piano guy has absolutely no reservations about singing songs from a female perspective if that’s what the lyrics call for, even though it makes him sound as though he’s the one lusting after/pining for/in love with a guy.

Chris’s closet-steeped mind can’t handle the casualness with which Darren busts through the gender wall. He thinks it must be a mistake the first time he hears it, but there’s really no misunderstanding Happy To Keep His Dinner Warm.

Third - Darren seems to have absolutely no particular style or theme to what he plays. Some are requests but just as often he’ll stare into a space for a second or look something up on his phone and plunge right into another song. From top forties to Broadway classics to punk to classic rock, he’s like an ipod set to shuffle… and not a person is complaining.

Fourth - that he still appears to be singing to Chris.

*

Chris spends an hour avoiding any kind of eye contact while hanging onto every word sung and spoken.

He should really have realized at some point Darren would have a break. Even if it had occurred to him, Chris probably still wouldn’t have been worried, though.

Even though he’s positive Darren is singing to him, there still seems like an unbridgeable gap between that and Darren actually talking to him.

Until Darren is actually talking to him.

"Hey, Chris, right?" Darren asks.

Chris isn’t even in front of the register. He’s off to the side, restocking the pastries displays. “Um. Yes?”

Darren beams at him. “Can I get a-“

"Red tea with honey?" Amy interrupts, stepping solidly into the space in front of the register.

Darren glances over at Chris but then turns his attention back to Amy and gives her that same charming smile that he’d been giving Chris. Chris tries not to feel let down.

"I’m going on my fifteen," Chris says.

Amy doesn’t appear to even hear him, but Chris doesn’t care. It’s not like he likes Darren or anything. He’s just got no interest in watching Amy claim her latest victim.

*

Chris spins the last half hour of his shift cleaning the stock room and by the time he comes back out to help with closing, the piano is empty and the lights are already dimmed.

He’s not expecting to see someone leaning against his car ten minutes later when he walks out. He’s the only one that parks to the side and he can already hear Amy starting up her car.

Not like he’d call for help from her, anyway. He’d rather take the beating, thank you very much.

It’s not one of the high school jocks come back for some nostalgia fun like he assumes, though.

It’s - Darren.

"Um," Chris says. His fingers relax on the keys clutched between them but he doesn’t let go entirely. "That’s my car."

"I was hoping so. The um, the Harry Potter bumper sticker kind of gave it away. Amy didn’t seem like the type."

"Right." Chris’s voice betrays his impatience. "Did you need something?"

"Just didn’t get to say hey earlier," Darren says.

The moon is barely-there and Chris parks in the shadows, so he can’t see Darren very well.

"Well. Hey." Chris rubs his palm against his pocket to feel his phone there out of habit.

"Hey," Darren says back. "So, um. You want to go out some time?"

"What?" Chris is incredulous this time. "You don’t even know me."

It’s not that he doesn’t know his own self-worth. He’s a fucking fascinating person, thank you very much. He’s just not used to other people recognizing that, too. Especially not attractive male type people that are reasonably close to him in age.

"Duh," Darren says. "That’s the point in hanging out. To get to know you."

“ _Hang_  out, or  _go_  out?” Chris says, because the distinction is obvious to him.

"Uh… whichever one you’d say yes to?" Darren says, sounding hopeful in an annoyingly endearing way.

"What if I say no to both of them?" Chris asks.

Darren shrugs. “Then you say no, and walk away. But like, sadly. I’d walk away very sadly.”

Chris has never been in this situation before. He’s never had a guy approach him, even just to be his friend.

He’s nineteen years old and he’s got a laughably small amount of life experience but he’s lived lifetimes in his own mind so he does what he’d do if this were a story he were writing all about himself.

He holds out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

Darren gives him the phone.

Chris has to hand it right back so Darren can unlock it, and okay, maybe that wouldn’t exactly be part of the story, but it reaches the same end anyway.

Chris gives Darren his number, says, “Text me,” without really smiling, and then gets in his car and drives away.

*

He almost has a panic attack when he gets home.

He flies past his parents and his sister and locks himself in his room. He can’t even write, he’s so flustered. Flustered, but pleased, too.

He’s in the middle of compiling a hundred reasons Darren won’t actually text him when Darren texts him.

*

The very next day they hang out.

It’s a Saturday. He meets Darren for lunch and it’s Darren’s suggestion that they walk down to the park, where a concert has been set up.

It’s good. It’s fun. It’s refreshing.

They sit on the grass and listen to the music. Chris makes fun of some of the people walking by. It’s only sort of a test, but Darren still passes it. He’s not unkind but he’s also not unwilling to crack a joke at the expense of someone that will never know it.

Sense of humor is important to Chris. He won’t let himself be that guy that falls for someone on the sole basis that they show a little kindness. He still has  _standards_.

(He can safely say, considering Darren meets them and he’s not left in a situation where he has to wonder if someone being into him would be too tempting.)

Darren totally flirts with him. There’s nothing it could be but flirting. Darren comes up with a reason to touch him approximately once every thirty seconds. Darren calls him cute. Darren buys him coffee. Darren buys him lunch.

They talk. Darren volunteers the whole story of his own life, and Chris allows Darren to pry details out of him. Darren talks about his brother in New York. Chris doesn’t talk about his sister. But he thinks about it and he might. It might not even take that long.

Darren laughs at his jokes. Darren wants to read his stories, and he acts entirely too fascinated in what Chris is doing even though CCC is barely more than post-high school daycare.

Darren’s from San Francisco. Darren writes songs. Darren wants to move back there soon, but he’s living with his grandmother in Clovis right now.

Had some issues back home, Darren says. Chris can’t imagine what those issues might have been but he’s okay with Darren holding a few things back. Chris can respect that.

He’s always been a fan of stories that unfold slowly.

*

Saturday afternoon bleeds into evening. It’s getting a little colder out. “Do you need to get home?” Darren asks.

"Trying to get rid of me?" Chris asks.

He doesn’t really think Darren is, but. It never hurts to check.

"Nope," Darren says. He reaches down and grabs Chris’s hand. He’s making it so easy for Chris. So easy to fall and not be afraid. Years and years of waiting and worrying and resigning himself to being alone, and suddenly… it’s just easy. "Just giving you an out in case you wanted one."

Chris stops and looks at Darren. “I don’t want one. Unless you’ve decided you’re embarrassed to be seen with me after all.”

Darren frowns at him, like the idea perplexes him, and Chris realizes he may have given away a little too much of what goes on in his head with that. 

He can’t take the words back, but he tries to pull his hand away. Darren doesn’t let him. “Why would anyone be embarrassed to be with you? You’re fucking  _awesome_.” 

Chris steadfastly ignores the lump in his throat. “Okay.”

"Okay." Darren smiles at him. “So what do you want?”

So easy. It’s almost unfair how easy Darren’s making this. 

"I want to go out with you." Chris says.

"Go out, or hang out?" Darren teases. 

Chris kisses him.

*

He’s at work a week later when Darren walks in.

Amy and Melinda are both there.

He enjoys the looks on their faces when Darren walks past them to get to him, but he enjoys the look on Darren's face even more. 


End file.
